By
Pastor Roger Anghis
January 13, 2013
NewsWithViews.com
Over the last fifty years we have seen America transform from a nation of producers to a nation of people who demand that the government take care of them. This is a result of the socialist teachings that is found in virtually every public college and university in America. Our colleges and universities teach that America's capitalism is the cause of all the woes of the world. My generation ushered in the 'gimmie' generation.
When I was growing up men still had a work ethic. Men would still rather work than get a handout. Getting a job was stressed to my generation. Being responsible for your actions was stressed to my generation. Too many decided that it was easier to blame others or their environment for the way they reacted to things. I still remember all the members of what it now called the Greatest Generation that influenced me as I was growing up. These were men and women that valued their word. My grandfather did everything on a handshake. I don't ever recall him doing anything with a written contract. He did what he said he would do and expected others to do the same. My generation, for the most part, let this valued character trait slip by the way side.
There are many things that my generation let slide. My generation learned to protest and they taught their kids the art of laziness. Occupy Wall Street is a result of that mentality. They want free housing, free education, free cars, free everything. I learned to work for everything I got. That was drilled into me from a very early age. I have to save my allowance, when I was able to get one, to buy a model car or air plane. Today's generation wants everything handed to it on a silver platter. Today's generation has to have entertainment 24/7. Video games, smart phones, 150 channels on cable.
Entertainment in the 50's was playing outside. You might play war or cowboys and Indians, baseball or some other sport but we were kept busy. Television came to the Denver area in 1952. We had four stations and they all went off the air at midnight. More of our generation attended church. The influence of the church on my generation was not as effective as it was for the previous generation. There used to be a creed, if you will, that was used to raise children and that creed had its foundation in the Word of God. Noah Webster wrote a book called Advice for the Young which laid out a foundation for raising a child. I can recall this philosophy being used by my parent and among many of my friends. Webster stated: "My young friends, the first years of your life are to be employed in learning those things which are to make you good citizens, useful members of society, and candidates for a happy state in another world. Among the first things you are to learn are your duties to your parents. These duties are commanded by God, and are necessary to your happiness in this life. The commands of God are, "Honor thy father and thy mother." "Children - obey your parents in all things." These commandments are binding on all children; they cannot be neglected without sin. Whatever God has commanded us to do, we must perform, without calling in question the propriety of the command."[1]
This philosophy was still prevalent when I was growing up but for some reason we didn't pass it on to the next generation. My generation was taught right from wrong and good from evil but we didn't pass it on to our kids. We were taught to be responsible for our actions, but began to believe the lies that we were victims of our environment or our upbringing.
My generation may have been the last innocent generation. We grew up with no pagers or cell phones no video games. No instant communications. Our parents would call us from the front porch, and we would come. Saturdays were welcomed with great anticipation. That was the day for the cartoons. Bugs Bunny, Coyote and the Road Runner, Tom and Jerry. Then there was the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver where good always prevailed and was enforced.
We didn't have bottled water we would drink water from a hose, and we all lived to tell about it. We would use clothes pins to clip playing cards to our bikes to make them sound like motorcycles. When we got home from school most of our Mom's were there and had been all day. If we got an allowance of 25 cents we were set for a whole week.
Any parent could discipline any child, and that included spanking, and nobody thought anything about it, not even the kid. Being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to what was going to happen when you got home. You feared punishment from your parents more than you feared gangs or drugs and drive bys were not even thought about. Water balloons were the weapons of choice.
How did we go from this to where we are today? How did we let this innocence slip through our fingers? The bigger question is why? Have we gotten so apathetic that we just don't care about the foundations that have kept America the greatest and most powerful and most desired nation in the world? Have we succumbed to the belief that we can do anything that we want, live anyway we want without any consequences? Have we forgotten that without diligence to what matters most, the family, that we will fail as a nation just as all nations that have ignored the family has.
We have taken for granted all that has made America great. If we don't begin to pay attention to who we are electing, as we have not been doing for the last fifty years, we will soon have a government full of those that do not have the best interest of America at heart.
America is slipping through our fingers. It is not lost, but as Reagan once said, We are not any more than one generation away from losing America. We are closer now than ever before of being at that point. Most of the present administration has no fondness of our Constitution or our bill of rights. Most don't like our Second Amendment or our First Amendment for that matter. They see the Constitution as a restriction on government, which is what it is supposed to be. We need people who respect the Constitution instead of despise it. Abraham Lincoln once described what would happen if we are not diligent in maintaining the quality of men we put into office. He said: ” Now more than ever before, the people of the United States are responsible, for the Character of Their Congress. If That Body be Ignorant Reckless and Corrupt, it is Because the People Tolerate Ignorance Recklessness and Corruption.”
Our government is full of corruption and vice only because we have allowed it. Charles Carroll warned us about losing our moral foundation. He stated: “Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they, therefore, who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”
This administration has made it a habit of dissing those that have money. They have worked hard for their money and deserve what they have, but Obama is always knocking them and making it look like being rich is a bad thing. Benjamin Harrison commented on that philosophy stating: "The indiscriminate denunciation of the rich is mischievous.... No poor man was ever made richer or happier by it. It is quite as illogical to despise a man because he is rich as because he is poor. Not what a man has, but what he is, settles his class. We cannot right matters by taking from one what he has honestly acquired to bestow upon another what he has not earned."
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We no longer teach the real history of America in our schools. It is being taught in Texas schools that The Boston Tea Party was 'an act of terrorism'. Roger Sherman warned us about the day if we ever failed to teach the history of our nation to our kids. That day is here. He stated: “Sad will be the day when the American people forget their traditions and their history, and no longer remember that the country they love, the institutions they cherish, and the freedom they hope to preserve, were born from the throes of armed resistance to tyranny, and nursed in the rugged arms of fearless men.”
Is this our last hurrah? I don't think so. But I do know that it will take some time to reverse what the last four years have done to America and what the next four years will do. Are you up to the fight? I hope so. Game on!
Footnotes:
[1]- Noah Webster, Advice to the Young and Moral Catechism, David Barton, editor, WallBuilders Press, p. 21
� 2013 Roger Anghis - All Rights Reserved
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Pastor Roger Anghis is the Founder of RestoreFreeSpeech.org, an organization designed to draw attention to the need of returning free speech rights to churches that was restricted in 1954.
President of The Damascus Project, TheDamascusProject.org, which has a stated purpose of teaching pastors and lay people the need of the churches involvement in the political arena and to teach the historical role of Christianity in the politics of the United States. Married-37 years, 3 children, three grandchildren.
Web site: RestoreFreeSpeech.org
E-Mail: editor@restorefreespeech.org
